The backlash against iPad begins

[1337ish]

Yes.... "Unfortunately" his personal experience means **** when it comes to the iPad popularity. iPad has been the fastest selling device so far and its future applications are enormous especially in the educational, medical and military market.

I work in education and I can tell you that in the UK there is NO desire to use those at schools. I knew a couple thinking about it but generally they are far far too limited and far far far far too expensive.

Do you honestly think schools have the money to shell out £425 (there is no school discount for ipad) per pupil to give them notepad.... then try to control the apps and crap on them.

We could supply full laptops with office and windows etc for that!

[Dysphoria]

The iPad will never be taken up by the military or medical market, especially not in the UK. Do you think that the tax payer would be happy if they saw the NHS spending their money on these wastes of money?

Healthcare industry on iPad

Florida Hospital in Orlando and St. Luke's Health System in Boise, Idaho, have begun pilot tests of customized versions of an application that enables the Apple iPad to view short interactive videos that explain common medical procedures.

The hospitals will test the Medical Video jLog product of Unity Medical Inc. in Boise. Florida Hospital will test videos with interactive Q&A that explain such procedures as CT scans and MRIs to children.

Hospitals to Pilot iPad App - April 6, 2010

Revolutionary application for a revolutionary product.

The following is a guest post from Dr. Larry Nathanson MD, who leads BIDMC's Emergency Medicine Informatics efforts. (Note that the photo contains only fictitious patient names):

I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my iPad --This is the form factor I have been asking (begging) of all the vendors for years. I'm very happy to say that it appears to be living up to my high expectations.

The iPad goes Live at BIDMC

[Sulphy]

Glad i didnt waste money on one!!! :)

[1337ish]

Healthcare industry on iPad

Florida Hospital in Orlando and St. Luke's Health System in Boise, Idaho, have begun pilot tests of customized versions of an application that enables the Apple iPad to view short interactive videos that explain common medical procedures.

The hospitals will test the Medical Video jLog product of Unity Medical Inc. in Boise. Florida Hospital will test videos with interactive Q&A that explain such procedures as CT scans and MRIs to children.

Hospitals to Pilot iPad App - April 6, 2010

Revolutionary application for a revolutionary product.

The following is a guest post from Dr. Larry Nathanson MD, who leads BIDMC's Emergency Medicine Informatics efforts. (Note that the photo contains only fictitious patient names):

I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my iPad --This is the form factor I have been asking (begging) of all the vendors for years. I'm very happy to say that it appears to be living up to my high expectations.

The iPad goes Live at BIDMC

Those are all just pilots, I would expect a *few* to pilot but I seriously doubt they will roll them out in any numbers. There are FAR FAR better devices for hospital use, I have seen them as they appeal to schools too for ruggerised reasons.

Its like the school with ipod touches for kids, a complete waste of time and purely marketing (private school)

For example you can get a pad that can be completely submerged and disinfected to hospital grade which runs windows and can literally be thrown down on the ground HARD. Do you honestly expect them to go for an ipad... It cant take any of these REAL pratical issues.

[Dysphoria]

I work in education and I can tell you that in the UK there is NO desire to use those at schools. I knew a couple thinking about it but generally they are far far too limited and far far far far too expensive.

Do you honestly think schools have the money to shell out ?425 (there is no school discount for ipad) per pupil to give them notepad.... then try to control the apps and crap on them.

We could supply full laptops with office and windows etc for that!

"Many colleges have offered free laptops to attract students. Now, some schools are offering the hottest new technology: Apple iPads.

On Tuesday, the Illinois Institute of Technology joined a few other schools in announcing it will give all 600 of its new freshmen a free iPad this fall."

IIT giving an iPad to every freshman - May 19, 2010

iPad Discounted to Education Institutions

The iPad in schools - Week 2 - April 26, 2010

[Elliott]

Do you honestly think schools have the money to shell out £425 (there is no school discount for ipad) per pupil to give them notepad.... then try to control the apps and crap on them.

There's no listed school discount for an iPad. A large school system can work out a deal with Apple to get their whole infrastructure set up at a fraction of the normal cost. Hell, when I was in school, my school system was one of the first to pioneer the whole "a laptop for every kid" thing. If they can buy iBook's for every student, I think discounted iPads are in the budget.

The iPad is even more attractive than a laptop for education because it makes an excellent alternative to the multitude of textbooks kids have to carry around right now and will easily last a whole school day and then some.

Also, managing a large number of iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads is pretty simple through the iPhone Configuration Utility.

P.S. Speaking from experience, we had a much easier time with the Macs in our school system (iBooks for the kids and Xserves as the servers). When we switched to Dell laptops and a Dell infrastructure, it all went to complete ****. It's not that it couldn't work, but Dell didn't help out the school system the same way Apple did. The school system eventually decided to re-up with Apple (after I left, much to my annoyance), and I think the next re-up will be to use iPads instead of the iBooks and MacBooks they have now.

[Dysphoria]

The funny part is that, market demand says differently from what you are claiming.

It's apparent that you and some other people dont like Apple and it's product.

The easy solution is not to buy their products, but saying that noone likes their products or that the iPad has been a failure is quite an ignorant and shallow comment....

Those are all just pilots, I would expect a *few* to pilot but I seriously doubt they will roll them out in any numbers. There are FAR FAR better devices for hospital use, I have seen them as they appeal to schools too for ruggerised reasons.

Apparently you did not read any of the links I posted.....

[Pharos]

I pretty much see it as a luxury item for rich people, or for people who buy it out of impulsiveness. I wouldn't go as far as calling it "useless", though. The iPad is a secondary device, at least for the current generation with all the limitations. If they make it better, then it will probably be a huge success as people would make it the center of their entertainment, or at least make it closer to being a primary device, right up there with the laptop. But for now, iPad = meh.

[inStereo]

Healthcare industry on iPad

Florida Hospital in Orlando and St. Luke's Health System in Boise, Idaho, have begun pilot tests of customized versions of an application that enables the Apple iPad to view short interactive videos that explain common medical procedures.

The hospitals will test the Medical Video jLog product of Unity Medical Inc. in Boise. Florida Hospital will test videos with interactive Q&A that explain such procedures as CT scans and MRIs to children.

Hospitals to Pilot iPad App - April 6, 2010

Revolutionary application for a revolutionary product.

The following is a guest post from Dr. Larry Nathanson MD, who leads BIDMC's Emergency Medicine Informatics efforts. (Note that the photo contains only fictitious patient names):

I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my iPad --This is the form factor I have been asking (begging) of all the vendors for years. I'm very happy to say that it appears to be living up to my high expectations.

The iPad goes Live at BIDMC

Firstly these quotes/links appear to be from within American Medical institues, not the UK's NHS which is funded by the tax payers hard earned money.

Maybe the private medical sector will show an interest although if you go on to read more in the links you posted, the Dr comments on how it's hard to use in a clinical environment, entering strong passwords is a particular difficulty, the build of the device (too slim and smooth) makes it difficult to keep hold of, also with it being a touch screen it will raise large concerns about hygene, especially within ER departments or other areas in hospitals where there is high patient interaction.

I work within the NHS and we have links with Microsoft for liscencing of software and Dell for hardware supplies, Apple have never been a contender to provide application/hardware to large institues such as this.

[techbeck]

Healthcare industry on iPad

Florida Hospital in Orlando and St. Luke's Health System in Boise, Idaho, have begun pilot tests of customized versions of an application that enables the Apple iPad to view short interactive videos that explain common medical procedures.

The hospitals will test the Medical Video jLog product of Unity Medical Inc. in Boise. Florida Hospital will test videos with interactive Q&A that explain such procedures as CT scans and MRIs to children.

Hospitals to Pilot iPad App - April 6, 2010

Revolutionary application for a revolutionary product.

The following is a guest post from Dr. Larry Nathanson MD, who leads BIDMC's Emergency Medicine Informatics efforts. (Note that the photo contains only fictitious patient names):

I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my iPad --This is the form factor I have been asking (begging) of all the vendors for years. I'm very happy to say that it appears to be living up to my high expectations.

The iPad goes Live at BIDMC

I wonder how schools and hospitals are going to get a bunch of iPads when you are limited to 2 per lifetime. Oh, I also hope they have wifi APs all over the place as you need to be right close to one in order to use it. Seriously...this is an issue and Apple has not fixed it yet? BIG surprise... :rolleyes:

The iPad is missing a LOT of features that are standard in most other devices. Yea, you can get these features in V2 of the device (maybe), have fun shelling out another 500-800 for a new iPad.

I dont know if the Android tablets will be much better, but at least you can expect more features, better support, be able to do what you want, not be limited to 2 per lifetime, and it will be cheaper.

[1337ish]

"Many colleges have offered free laptops to attract students. Now, some schools are offering the hottest new technology: Apple iPads.

On Tuesday, the Illinois Institute of Technology joined a few other schools in announcing it will give all 600 of its new freshmen a free iPad this fall."

IIT giving an iPad to every freshman - May 19, 2010

iPad Discounted to Education Institutions

The iPad in schools - Week 2 - April 26, 2010

Like I said, pilots/marketing. Also in the UK budgets are ever so slightly less..... we can buy damn cheap good kit with all the software it needs for the fee of an ipad.

Also is that not a university? and do they pay money to go there (which means its not free, its prepaid by someone)?

School = kids < 18 years old in the uk.

There's no listed school discount for an iPad. A large school system can work out a deal with Apple to get their whole infrastructure set up at a fraction of the normal cost. Hell, when I was in school, my school system was one of the first to pioneer the whole "a laptop for every kid" thing. If they can buy iBook's for every student, I think discounted iPads are in the budget.

The iPad is even more attractive than a laptop for education because it makes an excellent alternative to the multitude of textbooks kids have to carry around right now and will easily last a whole school day and then some.

Also, managing a large number of iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads is pretty simple through the iPhone Configuration Utility.

P.S. Speaking from experience, we had a much easier time with the Macs in our school system (iBooks for the kids and Xserves as the servers). When we switched to Dell laptops and a Dell infrastructure, it all went to complete ****. It's not that it couldn't work, but Dell didn't help out the school system the same way Apple did. The school system eventually decided to re-up with Apple (after I left, much to my annoyance), and I think the next re-up will be to use iPads instead of the iBooks and MacBooks they have now.

Like I said above budgets are a lot different in the UK. Also having no keyboard is an issue for pupils with special needs tbh and lots have issues like that in my school. They would be the cadidates for laptops but couldnt deal with an ipad tbh.

I do think its nice for textbooks but tbh its not a huge amount better then a laptop and thats before, like I say, you take in to account special needs. The fact flash doesnt work is also a HUGE mistake for school use as tons of UK resources are EXCLUSIVELY flash based (and well presented).

Also most of our resources for pupils are apps that are not on mac/app store which also defeats its benefits.

I think that there will probably be a proper discount once its in the uk but no suppliers etc are being offered rates yet, its probably just for the preorder stage.

I am not trying to say its useless, but our school certainly has no use for it due to its huge limitations (for us at least) and the feeling from a lot of the UK schools is the ROI is very poor and its really just pointless when compared to cheaper laptops. Why replace a laptop with an ipad to do less and educate poorer?

There will always be PR schools etc but realistically I cant see how any other school would be shelling out the extra for less especially since its actually poorer for special needs (screen reader anyone...)

As for the P.S. its really down to your team tbh to make the network work, we have windows here and completly dell without any issues etc so all I can say is its your install tbh.

If your team was mostly mac they would obviously struggle with a windows network as there is a lot more options/choices to be made but once its setup it can be a dream to use windows over mac.

P.S. Get your ipad to print there pupil work out, go on, also meet the DPA act by securing their work properly with backups... ohh it cant....

[Knife Party]

I pretty much see it as a luxury item for rich people, or for people who buy it out of impulsiveness. I wouldn't go as far as calling it "useless", though. The iPad is a secondary device, at least for the current generation with all the limitations. If they make it better, then it will probably be a huge success as people would make it the center of their entertainment, or at least make it closer to being a primary device, right up there with the laptop. But for now, iPad = meh.

+1 -> this is my sendiment exactly, what do you do with it? what's it primary purpose? can't justify spending all that money, for something that you'll probably just rehash in terms of everyday activities..... Think this is pretty useless in the consumer market, more of just another fashion statement, now everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon, as soon as market potential is created, the Tablet is nothing more than the niche market domino effect for the consumer market.

[Roger H. Veteran]

I still think the iPad is a pretty sweet piece of hardware but i just don't have use for it in it's current state. Surely it's nice to go to a coffee shop and just use it there or sometimes i'm home and don't wanna sit with the laptop in bed as my wrists start to hurt from using the touchpad. I still feel like i would want to jump into something more however after a while on Neowin, as i always get ideas of stuff to go try out here when reading here.

[Elliott]

I do think its nice for textbooks but tbh its not a huge amount better then a laptop and thats before, like I say, you take in to account special needs.

Battery life. The Dell laptops we had would max out at about 2.5 - 3 hours. The iPad? 10 hours. That's a huge amount better if you're dealing with textbooks. Almost all laptops (unless you start getting more expensive swivel-screen tablets) are in landscape mode as well, which isn't ideal at all for reading books. The iPad can be placed in portrait or landscape.

Special needs are definitely a factor, but the special needs kids in my school weren't able to use the XP laptops at all. The iPhone OS does also have a lot of nice accessibility tools which would make things like textbooks more accessible to them.

The fact flash doesnt work is also a HUGE mistake for school use as tons of UK resources are EXCLUSIVELY flash based (and well presented).

There are a lot of Flash resources here as well. Then again, none of them were actually funded by the public school system (which is mainly driven by individual states and counties in the US), and all of them that I came in contact with would easily be converted to viable HTML5/JS alternatives if the content providers see a market for iPads in school systems.

Also most of our resources for pupils are apps that are not on mac/app store which also defeats its benefits.

Unless these apps were developed by the government, again, I don't see why a private company wouldn't make an iPad version if they see a market for it. I'm sure all it would take is 1 or 2 school systems to show interest in an iPad-driven system to make it economically viable for a company.

It's also perfectly feasible to assume that there are already alternatives available to the apps that kids use on their laptops already.

There will always be PR schools etc but realistically I cant see how any other school would be shelling out the extra for less especially since its actually poorer for special needs (screen reader anyone...)

I'm not sure if the iPhone OS has support for braille screen readers, but VoiceOver is an excellent text-to-speech engine included in the iPhone OS.

As for the P.S. its really down to your team tbh to make the network work, we have windows here and completly dell without any issues etc so all I can say is its your install tbh.

If your team was mostly mac they would obviously struggle with a windows network as there is a lot more options/choices to be made but once its setup it can be a dream to use windows over mac.

Sure, it's down to technology team to make it work, but when Apple helped us so much with our first infrastructure, we kind of expected the same treatment out of Dell. Not so. It wasn't that they couldn't be managed well. It's that kids always found loopholes in Windows XP to get around the strictest GPO we could manage without completely destroying the ability for the student to do anything. I'm sure with some extra tinkering (and help from either Microsoft or Dell), it could've eventually worked out, but it was turning out to be more expensive in terms of man hours than what we saved on the contract when switching from Apple to Dell.

I've managed both Windows and OS X devices. Neither is perfect, and in a lot of ways, Windows is definitely champ, but when XP was the only viable solution at the time and there was really no deterrent for a student screwing around with the installation (i.e. no harsh penalty), we had a lot of kids finding ways to install and run games or other programs. We never had that problem with the Macs (and you can make snide remarks about "LOL there are no games for OS X", but the fact of the matter is that if a student had found a way, there would've been plenty of games and apps he/she could've installed to waste time).

P.S. Get your ipad to print there pupil work out, go on, also meet the DPA act by securing their work properly with backups... ohh it cant....

Fair point. While the DPA doesn't exist in the US (and we had kids losing school work all the time), the printing limitation is definitely a minus. Then again, maybe it's just time to move to digital document turn-ins.

[PixilEyes]

Don't forget it runs all the iPhone apps so there's like a bajillion apps.

And only 1% is original apps. But this goes also for android.

[1759]

"Many colleges have offered free laptops to attract students. Now, some schools are offering the hottest new technology: Apple iPads.

On Tuesday, the Illinois Institute of Technology joined a few other schools in announcing it will give all 600 of its new freshmen a free iPad this fall."

IIT giving an iPad to every freshman - May 19, 2010

iPad Discounted to Education Institutions

The iPad in schools - Week 2 - April 26, 2010

There is no such thing as 'free' at universities, it just gets rolled into your tuition. Basically, everyone will be given (and charged for) an iPad whether they want one or not, and do these schools even have an effective way of incorporating iPads into their teaching curriculum yet?

[mokthraka]

lets not forget the fact you cant pay cash for your ipad!

[1337ish]

Battery life. The Dell laptops we had would max out at about 2.5 - 3 hours. The iPad? 10 hours. That's a huge amount better if you're dealing with textbooks. Almost all laptops (unless you start getting more expensive swivel-screen tablets) are in landscape mode as well, which isn't ideal at all for reading books. The iPad can be placed in portrait or landscape.

Yeh the battery life is a fair point and so is landscape. If macbooks were cheaper we may consider dual boots for them as they give you battery life and full os/keyboard and a flexible system for edu software.

Special needs are definitely a factor, but the special needs kids in my school weren't able to use the XP laptops at all. The iPhone OS does also have a lot of nice accessibility tools which would make things like textbooks more accessible to them.

Out of interest what issues were they having with xp? or were you meaning more the batt life point above. For example we have software which tints the window in a certain colour as that can be easier for dyslexic pupils to read text as a far few suffer from black on white issues. You also couldnt use a coloured sheet (until they make one) as that would break touch.

Does iPhone os pdf reader support forms to be filled etc as that was another common laptop task for exams etc.

There are a lot of Flash resources here as well. Then again, none of them were actually funded by the public school system (which is mainly driven by individual states and counties in the US), and all of them that I came in contact with would easily be converted to viable HTML5/JS alternatives if the content providers see a market for iPads in school systems.

I would hope in a few years they would move over but I dont expect them to be quick at all based on previous experience with edu software. We still have software that wants Windows 98! and its used and they never bothered releasing any later version (and they keep selling licenses!)

A lot of the problems we face (UK) is that our education system is quite a bit different and also quite a smaller market so I suspect companies dont try as hard.

Unless these apps were developed by the government, again, I don't see why a private company wouldn't make an iPad version if they see a market for it. I'm sure all it would take is 1 or 2 school systems to show interest in an iPad-driven system to make it economically viable for a company.

It's also perfectly feasible to assume that there are already alternatives available to the apps that kids use on their laptops already.

Both points I suspect will be kinda like above, UK education is given a much slower stick to get this stuff driven out due to the much smaller market but we can hope.

I'm not sure if the iPhone OS has support for braille screen readers, but VoiceOver is an excellent text-to-speech engine included in the iPhone OS.

Does it work on all things? aka web pages etc? especially pdf.

Is there a full speech-to-text engine?

I only have a 3g and have not had a go of voiceover.

Sure, it's down to technology team to make it work, but when Apple helped us so much with our first infrastructure, we kind of expected the same treatment out of Dell. Not so. It wasn't that they couldn't be managed well. It's that kids always found loopholes in Windows XP to get around the strictest GPO we could manage without completely destroying the ability for the student to do anything. I'm sure with some extra tinkering (and help from either Microsoft or Dell), it could've eventually worked out, but it was turning out to be more expensive in terms of man hours than what we saved on the contract when switching from Apple to Dell.

I've managed both Windows and OS X devices. Neither is perfect, and in a lot of ways, Windows is definitely champ, but when XP was the only viable solution at the time and there was really no deterrent for a student screwing around with the installation (i.e. no harsh penalty), we had a lot of kids finding ways to install and run games or other programs. We never had that problem with the Macs (and you can make snide remarks about "LOL there are no games for OS X", but the fact of the matter is that if a student had found a way, there would've been plenty of games and apps he/she could've installed to waste time).

He he, would I make a snide remark...

Yeh XP did have its fair few issues with locking down which thankfully is much much better in w7. When XP came out did anything quite like GP even exist for mac?

A lot of XP issues were poor training about GP for a lot of people. The easiest way for example to stop running exe's/virus for example is "File execution policy" and its a simple case of only allow exe from c: and boom problem gone (bit more then that but you get idea)

As they say, each to there own, windows has worked well for us here but I do know of schools that dont have it simple and ones that have reverted as you did.

Fair point. While the DPA act doesn't exist in the US (and we had kids losing school work all the time), the printing limitation is definitely a minus. Then again, maybe it's just time to move to digital document turn-ins.

Yeh digital documents would be ace if all our staff could handle it... thats the other x factor we have, staff that need to really get into the basics of computers before pupils require it but thats not an ipad issue, its just a reason why we cant switch over yet.

A lot of these points will no doubt get answered by apple/devs etc over time, my point is ipad is not there yet for education (at least in the uk) but who knows what v2 or v3 will be like.

My main point is that the ipad certainly is not a huge amazing device for education yet due to all the v1 failings really but it certainly could become very good. Its far far to early to say its going to be any kind of a game changer. Education simply is not that fast moving to state it will be brilliant after its only been out a month or so. After 4-6 years though.... until then its all pretty much pr/bs in many ways.

Thanks for all the points Elliott, they have made good reading

[Elliott]

Out of interest what issues were they having with xp? or were you meaning more the batt life point above. For example we have software which tints the window in a certain colour as that can be easier for dyslexic pupils to read text as a far few suffer from black on white issues. You also couldnt use a coloured sheet (until they make one) as that would break touch.

Does iPhone os pdf reader support forms to be filled etc as that was another common laptop task for exams etc.

It was really just that XP didn't have the advanced text-to-speech built in necessary to help the special needs students. Since the laptops weren't necessary for the curriculum, the school system just decided to not invest any further in getting the accessibility features that the students needed. Weird, I know.

As for tinting, all I know is that you can throw the iPhone OS into "high contrast" mode, which basically makes the whole screen look like a negative. I'm not sure if that would help dyslexics at all though.

I would hope in a few years they would move over but I dont expect them to be quick at all based on previous experience with edu software. We still have software that wants Windows 98! and its used and they never bothered releasing any later version (and they keep selling licenses!)

A lot of the problems we face (UK) is that our education system is quite a bit different and also quite a smaller market so I suspect companies dont try as hard.

Both points I suspect will be kinda like above, UK education is given a much slower stick to get this stuff driven out due to the much smaller market but we can hope.

Yea, you've actually given me a lot of insight into the UK system. It works both ways. In the US, because the federal government doesn't control a lot in regards to education (other than trying to provide baseline standards), we get a lot of highs and lows involved in education. Some states have exceptional educational systems while others are in really bad shape. It does make a lot of our school systems a lot more agile, though.

Does it work on all things? aka web pages etc? especially pdf.

Is there a full speech-to-text engine?

I only have a 3g and have not had a go of voiceover.

It does. It works on all UI elements and readable/selectable text (including PDFs). It works extremely well on web pages, too, determining blocks of text not only by the syntactical elements in the HTML (like <p>, <div>, <h1>, etc.) but also by visually figuring out what constitutes a "block" on a page (which can make up for some poorly coded pages).

He he, would I make a snide remark... ;)

Yeh XP did have its fair few issues with locking down which thankfully is much much better in w7. When XP came out did anything quite like GP even exist for mac?

A lot of XP issues were poor training about GP for a lot of people. The easiest way for example to stop running exe's/virus for example is "File execution policy" and its a simple case of only allow exe from c: and boom problem gone (bit more then that but you get idea)

As they say, each to there own, windows has worked well for us here but I do know of schools that dont have it simple and ones that have reverted as you did.

We did have a file execution policy, but oddly enough, if a student placed something in certain places of the Windows system folder (like the IE temp folder), they could get programs to execute. We tried to close each loophole as it arose, but it was getting to be a major pain in the ass.

Yeh digital documents would be ace if all our staff could handle it... thats the other x factor we have, staff that need to really get into the basics of computers before pupils require it but thats not an ipad issue, its just a reason why we cant switch over yet.

Agreed. We had some staff that loved to take document submissions by email or by using their own personal drop box folder on a network share, but others would refuse to budge from the paper.

Thanks for all the points Elliott, they have made good reading :)

And thank you. It's definitely been an insightful discussion.

[1337ish]

RE: Elliots last post,

To save the mass quotes since its only a few things I wont unnessarily fill the page :)

XP text-speech: we actually bought a piece of software to get around this call read & write but yeh inbuilt sucked (go go MS SAM :D ). On a side point there is some really nice open source freeware for windows (possibly mac) which basically does all of what read & write does for free.

Dylexia: Yeh high contrast is a bit different but may help for some cases. It seems to be colour tinges such as purple and pink that help certain types of dyslexia, my GF actually needs a purple sheet otherwise words can get messed up when reading black text on white paper.

File execution: oooh yeh that classic of Run in IE instead of save, we have a few extra rules blocking that using wildcards.

RE: rest of points: thanks for all the info, I need to try a 3gs (or iPhone HD) out I think :)

Out of interest are you working in education yourself as your very clued up on the issues.

[Solid Knight]

What are you supposed to do with an iPad that warrants carrying it around?

[acnpt]

What are you supposed to do with an iPad that warrants carrying it around?

Consume media and information :p

Sure you can use an iPhone, but if you have the money: why not have a larger screen?

Full websites, pdfs & ebooks, magazines, videos, music, podcasts, internet radio, YouTube, ebay, amazon, email, banking, delivery tracking etc

Sure you can use a netbook for that too, but an iPad will be faster, better shaped and fanless.

[Malisk]

Sounds like this Peter Ha bought it on impulse and is now trying to blame everyone else for being stupid.

Yes. That is one bitter story if I ever saw one, lol. I've seen far more positive impressions of the iPad post-purchase. Actually, post-purchase reviews with a number of hours of use tend to be more positive than those quickies done for magazines as they haven't had time to get used to the new form factor etc.

[IndyLateNite]

Did anyone catch Jake Gyllenhaal on Jonathan Ross's show. They actually found a great use for the ipad... LOL

Here's a link in case you missed it.

[Solid Knight]

Consume media and information :p

Sure you can use an iPhone, but if you have the money: why not have a larger screen?

Full websites, pdfs & ebooks, magazines, videos, music, podcasts, internet radio, YouTube, ebay, amazon, email, banking, delivery tracking etc

But unlike a smart phone I have to lug this thing around externally. I can't just put it in my pocket. If I'm going to lug something around in a case around my body I might as well bring a netbook or ultraportable laptop and enjoy the increased functionality.